Vormator is another very interesting crowdsourcing webdesign project. The Vormator contest challenges artists to create a visual by using a very limited palette of shapes and possibilities. Artists are provided with 8 vector shapes, called the Elements, which they are allowed to use within a given set of rules. The goal of the project is to show the importance of limitations on creativity. The results of the contest prove that even with a large number of limitations, a surprising variation of outstanding graphics is possible.
Since the start of the Vormator project, the challenge has been successful on the Internet and is widely discussed on design portals, blogs and design forums. Also, a number of design professors are using the concept as a teaching method.
Over 500 submissions from all over the world were submitted to the contest. The best results were selected and have already appeared in print. It is intriguing to see the variety of artwork that came out starting from just 8 basic elements.
The Vormator contest points out a key element for a crowdsourcing project to be successful: give crowds the right boundaries. The amount of creativity you can expect from a crowd is very much dependent on finding the right balance between abstraction and concreteness. An open call for ideas will simply be too open. The creativity of ideas will not be deep enough. So, it is important to carefully define the questions to the public and add boundaries in order for the quality of ideas to increase.
And because I know you all love pictures, I selected a few Vormator pictures from deviantart:
Tags: creativity, Crowdsourcing, elements, key element of successful crowdsourcing projects, limitations and creativity, vormator, webdesign contest
